Over at Slate, David Auerbach has an amusing article on the oldest religious war. That would be vi versus Emacs, of course. Auerbach has a dangerous marriage: he’s an Emacs user and his wife is a Vim user so he’s probably seen some front-line action.
I’ve logged a lot of time with both editors so I was able to evaluate his descriptions of the editors. By and large I agree but he thinks that Emacs is easier to learn than vi. Vi’s modality can confuse a beginner for a short time but it seems to me the command set is pretty regular and intuitive while the Emacs key sequences are much less so. I think Emacs was harder to get really efficient in but the effort was worth it because of the tremendously powerful platform that you then have at your disposal.
There’s not much new in the article for Irreal readers but you’ll probably find it interesting anyway. Read it and see what you think. If you’ve got both vi(m) and Emacs experience, leave a comment telling us whether or not you agree with Auerbach’s assessments.